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“Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.”

— Warren Buffett

The wisdom of Warren Buffett reflects a value-based philosophy about investing that says investors are buying shares in a business, and encourages strategic thinking about investment time horizon. Before placing a buy order for a stock, a great question we can ask is whether we would still be comfortable making the investment if we couldn’t sell it for many years?

A “buy-and-hold” approach may call for a time horizon that spans a long period of time — maybe even lasting for a ten year holding period. Suppose such a “buy-and-hold” investor had looked into buying shares of Dollar Tree Inc (NASD: DLTR) back in 2011. Let’s take a look at how such an investment would have worked out for that buy-and-hold investor:

Start date: 07/01/2011
$10,000

07/01/2011
$29,161

06/30/2021
End date: 06/30/2021
Start price/share: $34.12
End price/share: $99.50
Starting shares: 293.08
Ending shares: 293.08
Dividends reinvested/share: $0.00
Total return: 191.62%
Average annual return: 11.29%
Starting investment: $10,000.00
Ending investment: $29,161.91

As shown above, the ten year investment result worked out quite well, with an annualized rate of return of 11.29%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 10 years ago into $29,161.91 today (as of 06/30/2021). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 191.62% (something to think about: how might DLTR shares perform over the next 10 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]

More investment wisdom to ponder:
“Investors should purchase stocks like they purchase groceries, not like they purchase perfume.” — Benjamin Graham